Real name: (The) Mudguards

Effective period / Period of releases: 1984

Members: Nelson Bloodrocket, Martin H. Wattinger, Reg Out

Active in East London and Essex between ’81 and ’93, and inspired by quintessential English working class entertainment – music hall, skiffle, drinking songs and broadsides – (The) Mudguards’ theme, or rather career-long obsession, was the “commodification of dissent”. In fact what makes their work special, and more resonant today than that of your typical sloganeering anarcho bleater, is their awareness of their own complicity in the things they despise, and all the self-loathing that comes with it.